This study sought to answer the question: If a woman is
experiencing intimate partner violence, does the collective efficacy
and community capacity of her neighborhood facilitate or erect
barriers to her ability to escape violence, other things being equal?
To address this question, longitudinal data on a sample of 210 abused
women from the CHICAGO WOMEN'S HEALTH RISK STUDY, 1995-1998 (ICPSR
3002) were combined with community context data for each woman's
residential neighborhoo... (more info)

This study sought to answer the question: If a woman is
experiencing intimate partner violence, does the collective efficacy
and community capacity of her neighborhood facilitate or erect
barriers to her ability to escape violence, other things being equal?
To address this question, longitudinal data on a sample of 210 abused
women from the CHICAGO WOMEN'S HEALTH RISK STUDY, 1995-1998 (ICPSR
3002) were combined with community context data for each woman's
residential neighborhood taken from the Chicago Alternative Policing
Strategy (CAPS) evaluation, LONGITUDINAL EVALUATION OF CHICAGO'S
COMMUNITY POLICING PROGRAM, 1993-2000 (ICPSR 3335). The unit of
analysis for the study is the individual abused woman (not the
neighborhood). The study takes the point of view of a woman standing
at a street address and looking around her. The characteristics of the
small geographical area immediately surrounding her residential
address form the community context for that woman. Researchers chose
the police beat as the best definition of a woman's neighborhood,
because it is the smallest Chicago area for which reliable and
complete data are available. The characteristics of the woman's police
beat then became the community context for each woman. The beat,
district, and community area of the woman's address are
present. Neighborhood-level variables include voter turnout
percentage, organizational involvement, percentage of households on
public aid, percentage of housing that was vacant, percentage of
housing units owned, percentage of feminine poverty households,
assault rate, and drug crime rate. Individual-level demographic
variables include the race, ethnicity, age, marital status, income,
and level of education of the woman and the abuser. Other
individual-level variables include the Social Support Network (SSN)
scale, language the interview was conducted in, Harass score, Power
and Control score, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) diagnosis,
other data pertaining to the respondent's emotional and physical
health, and changes over the past year. Also included are details
about the woman's household, such as whether she was homeless, the
number of people living in the household and details about each
person, the number of her children or other children in the household,
details of any of her children not living in her household, and any
changes in the household structure over the past year. Help-seeking in
the past year includes whether the woman had sought medical care, had
contacted the police, or had sought help from an agency or counselor,
and whether she had an order of protection. Several variables reflect
whether the woman left or tried to leave the relationship in the past
year. Finally, the dataset includes summary variables about violent
incidents in the past year (severity, recency, and frequency), and in
the follow-up period.

(1) The data providing the community context taken
from the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) evaluation are
contained in the ICPSR study, LONGITUDINAL EVALUATION OF CHICAGO'S
COMMUNITY POLICING PROGRAM, 1993-2000 (ICPSR 3335). Users should refer
to the original study for the data collection instruments. (2) The
data from the personal interviews with abused women are contained in
the ICPSR study, CHICAGO WOMEN'S HEALTH RISK STUDY, 1995-1998 (ICPSR
3002). Users should refer to the original study for the data
collection instruments. The National Archive of Criminal Justice Data
has created an online Resource Guide for the CHICAGO WOMEN'S HEALTH
RISK STUDY, 1995-1998 (ICPSR 3002) in order to provide important
information about the complexities of the data collection. Users are
strongly encouraged to carefully review the information in the
Resource Guide before referring to the Chicago Women's Health Risk
Study. The Resource Guide is available at
http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/NACJD/HELP/faq3002.html. (3) The user
guide and codebook are provided by ICPSR as Portable Document Format
(PDF) file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems
Incorporated and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as
the Adobe Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the
Acrobat Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.

Methodology

Study Purpose:
Intimate violence is seldom a single event, but
rather a continuing relationship punctuated by verbal and physical
abuse. Empirical evidence indicates that previous violent events
cumulate to determine the development of each succeeding event, though
escalation is not inevitable. Efforts at prevention or intervention,
if they are to be effective, must take into account not just one event
or circumstance, but also the pattern of repetition. These violent
events take place at a location. That location lies within a
neighborhood context. Research has suggested that a neighborhood's
collective efficacy and capacity to solve problems are linked to
neighborhood violence. Collective efficacy and community capacity are
each a "social good" -- a resource for the entire neighborhood,
derived from the social interaction of neighborhood
residents. Community capacity to solve problems includes collective
efficacy as well as social resources that result from neighborhood
organizations and the neighborhood's clout in the city. There are many
avenues through which a woman's neighborhood can provide resources and
support for help-seeking and the reduction of violence. They include,
but go beyond, the physical availability and cultural accessibility of
nearby support services. Intervention from a public health, public
safety, or helping agency may not be sufficient or even necessary for
a woman to escape a dangerous situation. Formal interventions occur in
a context of interventions initiated by the woman herself with the
support of natural helping networks. Research indicates that an abused
woman's ability to mobilize social control effectively is an
interactive process related to her resources and individual situation,
as well as to the availability of services. Therefore, support from
informal social networks may be as vital as support from formal
community services. The vast majority of research on collective
efficacy and violence has focused on street crime, not on violence
committed within the family. The few studies that exist suggest that,
when a neighborhood enjoys greater collective efficacy, the
violence-reduction benefits may accrue not only to those who are
victimized on the street or in public places, but also to those who
are victimized behind closed doors. However, because of methodological
limitations in those studies, it is difficult to examine the processes
underlying the association. To study the effect of the neighborhood
context on an abused woman's ability to escape further violence, it is
necessary to follow the experiences of individual abused women over
time. Though many agree that analysis of the contextual effect of the
community on an abused woman's help-seeking and on violence reduction
is sorely needed, such an analysis is not simple. It requires
longitudinal data on women being physically abused by an intimate
partner, and data on the efficacy and capacity of the neighborhoods
where each woman lives. Together, the Chicago Women's Health Risk
Study (CWHRS) and the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS)
evaluation can provide this information. This study sought to answer
the question: If a woman is experiencing intimate partner violence,
does the collective efficacy and community capacity of her
neighborhood facilitate or erect barriers to her ability to escape
violence, other things being equal? To address this question,
longitudinal data on a sample of 210 abused women from the CHICAGO
WOMEN'S HEALTH RISK STUDY, 1995-1998 (ICPSR 3002) were combined with
community context data for each woman's residential neighborhood taken
from the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) evaluation,
LONGITUDINAL EVALUATION OF CHICAGO'S COMMUNITY POLICING PROGRAM,
1993-2000 (ICPSR 3335).

Study Design:
This study linked two unique Chicago datasets, (1)
the CHICAGO WOMEN'S HEALTH RISK STUDY (CWHRS) (ICPSR 3002) and (2) the
Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) evaluation. The CWHRS was
designed to give nurses, beat officers, and other primary support
people information they need in order to help women experiencing
violence at the hands of an intimate partner to lower their risk of
life-threatening injury or death. The CWHRS was designed around the
comparison of a sample of all intimate partner homicides involving a
woman aged 18 or older that occurred in Chicago over a two-year
period, and a clinic/hospital sample of detailed, longitudinal
interviews with women sampled as they came into hospitals and clinics
in Chicago neighborhoods in which the risk for intimate partner
violence was high. The purpose of the CAPS evaluation was to evaluate
the long-term organizational transition of the Chicago Police
Department (CPD) to a community policing model. CAPS is an ambitious
plan to reorganize the CPD, restructure its management, redefine its
mission, and forge a new relationship between police and city
residents. From its inception, the CAPS evaluation included important
geographic components. Information from a number of sources, including
the Census, police reports, traffic, schools, and housing, was
geocoded into area boundaries that were consistently maintained
throughout the evaluation period, and the datasets collected by the
evaluation were also geocoded into the same boundaries. The CAPS
evaluation conducted citywide random-digit dialing surveys of city
residents in English or Spanish. Because the residential address of
each CAPS survey respondent could be geocoded, CAPS survey data were
available for almost all larger areas (such as Chicago community areas
or police districts) and for many smaller areas (such as police
beats). From the CWHRS study, researchers used only the
clinic/hospital sample. From the CAPS evaluation, researchers used (1)
the geographic database including Census data, crime indicators,
neighborhood disorder, and voter turnout, and (2) neighborhood
collective efficacy and community capacity data from the citywide
surveys that the CAPS evaluation conducted annually from 1995 to
1998. The CAPS evaluation surveys also were the source for three of
the four community context indicators used in the combined dataset --
informal social control, organizational involvement, and station
protest (one of the two downtown connections indicators). The second
downtown connections indicator, voter turnout, is from the CAPS
geographic database. The unit of analysis for the combined dataset is
the individual abused woman, not the neighborhood. The study takes the
point of view of a woman standing at a street address and looking
around her. The characteristics of the small geographical area
immediately surrounding her residential address form the community
context for that woman. Although there may be similarities among women
living in the same neighborhood or in neighborhoods with similar
community contexts, each woman responds to her context in a unique
way, depending on her individual situation. To link each woman to the
community where she was living at the time of the initial CWHRS
interview, researchers geocoded her residential address (determined
its longitude and latitude) at the initial interview. It was then
possible to overlay the woman's geocoded address on a Chicago map
showing various area boundaries, such as Chicago community areas,
census tracts, census block groups, Chicago police districts, and
Chicago police beats. Researchers were therefore able to determine the
area in which each woman was living at the time of the initial CWHRS
interview. Researchers evaluated a large variety of alternative area
definitions for residential neighborhood and chose the police beat as
the best, because it is the smallest Chicago area for which the most
reliable and complete data are available. The characteristics of the
woman's police beat then became the community context for each woman.

Sample:
Convenience sampling.

Data Source:

personal interviews, telephone interviews, and
administrative records

Description of Variables:
Demographic variables include the race, ethnicity,
age, marital status, income, and level of education of the woman and
the abuser. The beat, district, and community area of the woman's
address are present. Neighborhood-level variables (for police beats)
include voter turnout percentage, organizational involvement,
percentage of households on public aid, percentage of housing that was
vacant, percentage of owned units, percentage of feminine poverty
households, assault rate, and drug crimes rate. Individual-level
variables include the Social Support Network (SSN) scale, language the
interview was conducted in, Harass scale score, Power and Control
score, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) diagnosis, and other data
pertaining to the woman's emotional and physical health. Also included
are details about the woman's household, such as whether she was
homeless, the number of people living in the household and details
about each person, the number of her children or other children in the
household, details of any of her children not living in her household,
and any changes in the household structure over the past
year. Help-seeking in the past year includes whether the woman had
sought medical care, had contacted the police, or had sought help from
an agency or counselor, and whether she had an order of
protection. Several variables reflect whether the woman left or tried
to leave the relationship in the past year. Finally, the dataset
includes summary variables about violent incidents in the past year
(severity, recency, and frequency), and in the follow-up period.

Response Rates:
Not applicable

Presence of Common Scales:
Several Likert-type scales were used as well as the
Medical Outcomes Study (MOS) scale of depression (Hayes et al., 1995,
Stewart et al., 1988), the Power and Control scale (Johnson, 1996),
the HARASS scale of stalking and harassment (Sheridan, 1998), a
modified version of the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS) (Johnson, 1996),
the Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Symptom Scale (Foa et al.,
1993), the Campbell Danger Assessment (Campbell, 1993), and the Social
Support Network (SSN) scale (Block et al., 2000).

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:2003-01-31

Version History:

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.